


untitled (lydia and dovahkiin, one hundred years, dot com)

by LunDiiVith



Series: morning doves [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, at least at the beginning of her journey, i think this is a good start, it's a solid introduction to her character, realized i wanted to post more fic about my LDB before writing my big fic featuring her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25644886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunDiiVith/pseuds/LunDiiVith
Summary: this is absolutely plotless, but I've had it sitting in my drafts for two years now, I think?, so I'm posting it, because I want to get all my Dove things out there. I've got nearly 20k words written about her in loose scraps of fic and maybe a third of it hasn't been posted and is salvageableanyways, Lydia meets the Last Dragonborn. she's not as tall as advertised
Relationships: Dovahkiin | Dragonborn & Lydia, Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Lydia
Series: morning doves [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714618
Kudos: 14





	untitled (lydia and dovahkiin, one hundred years, dot com)

It was far too early in the morning, and Lydia’s life had just changed radically in the span of a few hours. For starters: The Dragonborn was here, and Lydia had been sworn into her service.

...It was dark outside.

“Uh,” the young woman said, once outside Dragonsreach. She stared at Lydia, blinked once, owlishly. “I don’t have a house. I hope that’s not a problem.” She enunciated the syllables carefully. Her voice was a little rough. Almost as if she had a sore throat, or as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time.

“We could stay at the Bannered Mare, my thane,” Lydia told her. She felt a little odd. She’d sworn service to the Jarl - her uncle - some years ago. She’d accepted the offer to become the new thane’s housecarl of her own volition. But the last couple of days had happened so fast, and so many things had happened in them. It felt… surreal. Attacks in Helgen, the court mage receiving strange visitors… a dragon attack nearby, and. This.

Her thane opened her mouth. She closed it and then simply nodded. She began walking towards the stairs. Lydia followed her after a moment, a couple paces back. Her thane… she didn’t know her thane’s name yet.

She had white hair, done up in some sort of knot. It looked as if she’d tied it up the best she could while busy, so it didn’t get in her face. Loose strands fell out of her updo and framed her face. Her ears were slightly pointed, and her eyes were pitch-black all over, like some elves’. She had freckles covering her entire face. She didn’t quite look like an elf, not did she quite look like a Nord. Lydia’s new thane was smaller than her, shorter and skinnier too.

She wore cheap-looking leathers and ragged, worn clothing. At her hip hung an ancient-looking black sword. Its edge was uneven, maybe recently sharpened. Slung onto her back, a quiver with a few arrows and a bow.

They got to the Bannered Mare after a couple minutes of silent walking. The sun was rising. Pink clouds crossed the sky, and the first stirrings of life in the morning could be seen. A group of Companions came back to Jorrvaskr; they looked bruised and hungover. 

Lydia had only been woken up recently, right before dawn. She knew her thane had been awake for longer. _Especially_ , Lydia thought, _with her tendency to stretch and yawn while she walked_. The way she did it — and Lydia noticed she was musing at this point, filling her bored mind with description if only to ground herself in what would soon become her new life, what already had become her new life, and also, a little bit, to entertain herself —, the way her Thane did it reminded Lydia, in a strange way, of the few khajiit she’d seen in her life. Lydia hadn’t traveled much, but she remembered a few years back when a khajiiti merchant came into town proper. One day she’d seen him stretch. She’d thought for a moment he was purposefully dislocating his own arms. He hadn’t been, of course, but. And that was the same exact feeling the… she was the Dragonborn, Lydia had to keep reminding herself, the same exact feeling the Dragonborn gave her as she moved. Graceful but a little worrying. Claws and fangs in plain view.

A wooden squeak. The inn’s doors needed oiling. The Bannered Mare’s fire was mere embers at this hour, a half-asleep Redguard woman manning the place. Her thane spoke with her, gave her fifteen septims for a two-person room. She showed them to their room and went back down.

The room had two beds. They had white bedclothes. Furs were strewn on top. Two chests, each at one of the beds’ feet.

The Dragonborn sat on one of the beds. “So,” she said.

“So,” echoed Lydia, standing by the door. There was a pause. “My thane. I don’t know your name.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she muttered, surprised. “I don’t think I have one.”

“I… don’t understand?”

“I don’t know who I am. I apologize.” Her thane smiled, apologetic. Under Lydia’s confused look, her smile crumbled. “I don’t… remember.”

“What do you remember?” The sunshine coming in through the tiny window had changed colors during the time they’d been inside. The day was a sleepy blueish-gray.

“Not much.” The Dragonborn looked down. “I remember… a forest, shakily. Running from some soldiers. There was something I needed to do, but I feel… as if it doesn’t matter now. Or as if I’ve already done it. As if it was done, now. Isn’t it strange?” She looked up at Lydia, a wobbly smile on her face. Lydia nodded, a small smile on her face. _The Dragonborn is so… small_ , she thought.

“In any case,” the Dragonborn continued, breaking eye contact, “I don’t remember any names. After that vague memory, I just woke up being carted away to be executed.” Lydia’s back straightened in surprise. “Oh, I haven’t told you how I ended up in Helgen yet, huh? I forget not everyone knows, uhm... what _I_ know.” She snorted. “Do you want the short version?”

“It would be my pleasure, my thane.” A little sarcasm seeped in, but the Dragonborn didn’t seem to notice.

“I woke up in a cart, alongside a horse thief, a few Stormcloaks and Ulfric Stormcloak himself,” the Dragonborn begun, amused. Lydia raised her eyebrows. _Sure, that had happened_. “We made a line. They executed a Stormcloak. The horse-thief ran away, he was shot by an arrow…”, and she was counting these off on her fingers, “then it was my turn. And then the dragon came.” She shrugged. “Those are my first clear memories. Um,” she bit her lip for a moment, “after that, the Stormcloaks and the Imperial soldiers both ran away. I ended up joining a lone Imperial soldier that made his way through some catacombs… Hadvar, maybe?”

Her thane’s voice was a little slurred. She’d taken off her shoes at some point. She pulled her legs on top of the bed, dragged herself back to lean against the headboard. “We went to his uncle’s house in a small town nearby. I ate lunch and dinner there, and after dinner I made my way to Whiterun. I was here, hm… a bit past midnight, maybe. I caught the Jarl sleep-deprived.” She giggled. Lydia nodded. “He sent me to his insomniac wizard, who sent me to a cavern near the town I started at. To find a rock. I crashed on the streets of the Cloud District, under the tree, got woken up by a child asking for coin. I gave her some.” Her smile turned bittersweet. “We talked a bit. Her name’s Lucia.”

“I’ve seen her,” Lydia said, quietly. She’d appeared only a couple of months ago. It was sad to see a child begging on the streets like this, but she didn’t know what she could do.

The Dragonborn paused. Internally wording something. “I bought Lucia a night at the Bannered Mare,” she said after a bit, hesitant. There was a pause before she continued.

“Um… where was I?”

“You were sent to some caverns?”

“Oh, yes. An old Nordic tomb. I fought…” and her thane yawned, “a lot of… corpse men…?”

“Draugr?”

“Draugr, yes, thank you… There was a glowing wall, at the end. And a very... big draugr. I took his sword. In his tomb, there was the rock I was sent to retrieve.” A silence. “The glowing wall spoke to me,” she added, impulsively.

“What words of wisdom did it give you?” A lot more sarcasm seeped into that one. 

The Dragonborn very deliberately pointed her chin up wards, staring at the ceiling. “ ** _Fᴜs_** ,” she whispered. Lydia shivered. Goosebumps went up and down her arms. Had some sort of sudden, chilly breeze gotten into the room? She grasped her right arm with her left hand.

The Dragonborn grinned at her when she noticed this. She still acted sleepily. “Magical words,” she told Lydia. Lydia… she’d never been much of a folklorist. Any Nord knew the story of the Dragonborn, but the details were fuzzy in her memory. She accepted it as part of the deal. Magical words. Sure.

After a moment, the Dragonborn kept going. “After that, I got a room at the town’s inn. I actually reached the town around maybe two in the morning? I was surprised the inn was still open. I got a room, the woman manning the inn looked at me strangely. I slept in until the afternoon, then I ate and left for Whiterun. Reached the castle around nine in the afternoon yesterday, got told a huge dragon had appeared nearby. You know the rest of the story.” She yawned again.

“You should rest, my thane.”

“Ah… I wonder if I’ll be nocturnal the rest of my life,” the Dragonborn wondered. She got under the covers as Lydia walked over to the other bed and sat down. The Dragonborn turned around to look at her housecarl.

“Good night, Lydia,” she said, softly. 

“Good morning, you mean.” Lydia really couldn’t help herself.

“I do. Thank you… Good morning, Lydia.” 

She fell asleep almost instantly.

***

The Dragonborn woke up around noon, demanding food. Lydia ate with her.

“We’ll need to leave for High Hrothgar,” her thane told Lydia over lunch. “We could leave tomorrow morning. You’ll say goodbye to your friends, I’ll say hello to a few friends I _think_ I made when I first came here.”

“I’ve already said goodbye to all my friends here, my thane.” Technically true; Lydia didn’t have friends in Whiterun. Hadn’t in quite some time. The Dragonborn looked at her and nodded after a second.

“All right.” She finished her roasted vegetables and got up. She offered Lydia a hand. “Do you want to come with me?”

“I am sworn to do just so, my thane,” Lydia told her.

“Great!”

They paid the innkeeper another fifteen septims to rent the room for one more day and then hit the cobblestones. The first thing the Dragonborn did was go to the marketplace.

It was a busy day at the marketplace. The Dragonborn tapped Lydia’s shoulder. “I’ll give you half my money and you can buy some food for the road,” she said. Lydia nodded before receiving what amounted to two handfuls of septims. _It wouldn’t be very good food_ , Lydia thought, _but it’d be enough_.

She spent about an hour shopping before seeing again her thane. She was holding a variety of items, such as: some better armour, a few changes of clothes, two pairs of new boots, a few books, and two traveling bags. 

“I… assumed you didn’t have one,” she said, nervously.

“I did not. Thank you, my thane,” Lydia told her. She picked the biggest traveling bag, and the Dragonborn took the chance to unload on her the clothes and boots and armor. Lydia stared right into her eyes. “I am,” she said, trying to imbibe the statement with _all_ the sarcasm she could muster, “indeed, sworn to carry your burdens.”

The Dragonborn laughed. Lydia did so, too.

They went to the Bannered Mare after a while, to pack up better. The Dragonborn changed into a new pair of pants and shirt, cheap-looking but clean and new, and told Lydia to stay at the room while she talked to a few people she’d met.

She came back around dinnertime. She had a new sword — Skyforge steel, Lydia noticed with a pang of jealousy — and looked grimy and sweaty. Lydia went downstairs while her thane, in their room, washed herself standing up in a bucket. Eventually, the Dragonborn came downstairs and they had dinner together. Lydia learnt that, while she didn’t know her name, knew her background and her age. She was twenty-two — four years younger than Lydia — and apparently a half-elf.

“You’re the first one I’ve seen,” Lydia told her. “I… have to admit, I didn’t know they existed.”

“Maybe we don’t,” the Dovahkiin said, distracted, “and I’m just some kind of magical accident.” She blushed furiously as she realized she’d actually spoken out loud, and Lydia laughed, hard.

***

They arrived at Ivarstead, the town at the bottom of the mountain, after a few days’ travel. They circled around the mountain, going north. Her Thane had, apparently, been hired to kill some bandits by her “friends”. (She’d clarified over dinner to Lydia they were, in fact, the Companions, and that she was working on joining them. Her “why” had basically been “I need friends and training”; good enough, Lydia guessed.). 

During the trek to the mountain, they ended up passing by Morthal. They spent only one night there, but the town still managed to unnerve Lydia. Her thane resolved to pass by it again sometime later. She felt like something was going on, could “practically smell it” (direct quote), but they didn’t have time to do anything.

In the end, the duo arrived in Ivarstead at night. They rented a two-person room at the inn and ate dinner there. The Dragonborn talked to everyone she found. She’d decided they’d be staying for a while. Lydia thought it ought to be boring to stay for more than one day in a town such as this, but she wasn’t the one calling the shots, so she guessed it was out of her hands. She let her thoughts slip, though, and the way she phrased it made the Dragonborn snort and cough up her water.

After breakfast the next morning, they began their trek. No sooner had they passed the bridge that they found a man who couldn’t carry a bag of food and other such supplies to the Greybeards. Her thane promised to help, and she was given the supplies, and they carried on, but—

—after walking for some time, it was obvious she struggled under its weight, combined with her own bag. Lydia stopped in her tracks and her thane stopped with her.

“My thane, you do remember I am sworn to carry your burdens, right?” Lydia asked her. She put her hands on top of the bag.

“Oh,” the Dragonborn said. “Thank you, Lydia.”

During the trek, they took turns carrying the bag. The Dragonborn made sure to speak with the two or three pilgrims she found. She seemed to really want to talk to them further, but they didn’t have much else to say, so they carried on. She also took the time to read the etched tablets. Lydia mostly tuned her clumsy reading out through their trip.

After a while, the path went through two tall outcroppings of rock. Lydia’s turn carrying the bag ended, and she gave it to the Dragonborn. They kept walking.

There was a roar.

A frost troll. Lydia’s eyes widened, and she grabbed the back of the Dragonborn’s (new, handmade) fur cloak and ran like the winds. 

_**Fᴜs** _ **,**

she heard from behind her. A booming noise resonated behind her, sending the troll flying backwards. A sudden gust of wind pushed Lydia forward. They reached the edge of the little plateau, where the stone steps became discernible again, and the Dragonborn gave Lydia her bow.

“I’ve got fire magic! You shoot it!” she told her. Lydia drew the bow, a little shakily. She was no expert, but she knew enough. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her thane’s hands begin glowing. The troll came back, like a stampede, and the two women split up, moving opposite to each other, shooting it again and again. The troll was confused for a moment. Lydia, stupidly, chose that exact moment to shoot it one more time. It roared and ran towards her, and Lydia knelt, and it reached her, got his enormous claws so close to her —

— until a white-hot sword tip carved through its ribs. The troll tried to turn around, to see what exactly had stabbed it, and Lydia took the moment to grab a dagger she’d hung from her waist and stab its neck. That finished it off.

The troll fell to the ground with a dull thump. The Dragonborn was forced to kneel as it fell, since her sword was still stuck through its ribs. And still white-hot, Lydia noticed. Her thane’s hands glowed. She didn’t seem bothered by the heat.

“...How?” Lydia asked.

The Dragonborn panted. “What?”

“You’re going to melt your sword, my thane!”

“Fuck!” She pulled it out and dropped it on the floor in one swift motion. It sizzled, a little deformed by the experience.

They both looked around for the bag. The Dragonborn found it first, and pointed at it; she’d dropped it while they ran. When she came back with it, Lydia was still on her knees. Her thane offered her her free hand. Lydia held it thankfully, helping herself stand up.

“How did you not burn yourself with the sword?” Lydia asked.

“Oh,” the Dragonborn replied, distracted. “I think the heat doesn’t hate me. I grabbed a red-hot coal a few days ago, and I was fine...”

“A fine theory, my thane. Should we keep walking?”

“...Let’s wait a second and then continue.”

And behind the Dragonborn, High Hrothgar stood, as gray as its inhabitants — and holding behind its great doors their future.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/lundiivith), [instagram](https://instagram.com/lundiivith), or [tumblr](https://lundiivith.tumblr.com), all at lundiivith! ive got more dove content on this fic series and on my [ tumblr](https://lundiivith.tumblr.com/ocs) as well!


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